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Wow. What a stellar performance from President Clinton - the "wonk in chief" as Ezra Klein dubbed him:

“People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets,” former President Bill Clinton said on Wednesday night. “What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.”

Ezra cites a Clinton stanza on Medicaid:

Now, folks, this is serious, because it gets worse. And you won’t be laughing when I finish telling you this. They also want to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming 10 years. Of course, that’s going to really hurt a lot of poor kids.

But that’s not all. A lot of folks don’t know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors who are eligible for Medicaid. It’s going to end Medicare as we know it. And a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities, including a lot of middle-class families whose kids have Down’s syndrome or autism or other severe conditions.

And, honestly, just think about it. If that happens, I don’t know what those families are going to do. So I know what I’m going to do: I’m going to do everything I can to see that it doesn’t happen. We can’t let it happen. We can’t.

Alex Castellanos, GOP strategist, summed up the reaction of the Republicans to the speech quite nicely:

I would recommend to my friend Paul [Begala] here, tonight when everybody leaves, lock the doors. You don't have to come back tomorrow. This convention is done. This will be the moment that probably reelected Barack Obama.

I do not trust Castellanos. I think he was trying to drive a wedge between Obama and Clinton by praising Clinton so much and implying that we don't need Obama i.e putting Obama down. I do not think I'm paranoid about this but just realistic about Republican shenaningans.

To the U.S. Congress:

Protect our seniors and END the government's ability to garnish Social Security benefits.

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